Masking and Revealing Health Inequities: Ethnicity Classification of Men Who Have Sex With Men in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dr Nathan Lachowsky is an Assistant Professor and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar in the School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria in Canada, which sits on the unceded traditional territories of the Lkwungen-speaking peoples, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. His research focuses on the use of community-based methods to address sexual health inequities among marginalised populations.

Abstracts:

Ethnicity classification systems have considerable implications for public health, including the potential to reveal or mask inequities. Men who have sex with men are a behavioural population disproportionately affected by HIV in Aotearoa New Zealand, making up 89% of all new diagnoses acquired domestically in 2016. However, public health research has rarely investigated the intersections of ethnicity and sexuality. This seminar will present findings from an analysis of national behavioural surveillance data from 10,525 men who have sex with men collected in 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2014 across Aotearoa New Zealand. We investigated three ethnicity classification methods and their relationship to sample size, socio-demographics and sexual health indicators. We also assessed trends in sexual health outcomes disaggregated by ethnicity. Different classification approaches alter sample size and influence identification of health inequities. Data disaggregated by ethnicity highlight inequalities in sexual health service access and prevention uptake. Population-level trends were driven by the majority European sub-group, masking important differences for ethnic minority sub-groups. These findings have broad implications for public health surveillance that is used to activate public health responses.